Mithridanes—Nathan

The relationship between Mithridanes and Nathan is a contest over generosity that nearly becomes a murder and ends in an exchange of humility and affection. Mithridanes first sees Nathan as the rival whose fame eclipses his own; Nathan, even when faced with a would-be killer, treats him as a guest and ultimately offers him his life. Their encounter transforms competition into friendship, while testing whether liberality can be measured, surpassed, or simply practiced without limit.

Origins of the Rivalry

Nathan is a wealthy, well-born man in Cattajo, whose estate stands beside a highway traveled by those journeying between the western and eastern shores. To make his generosity known through action, he quickly builds a splendid palace, furnishes it for the reception of gentlemen, and maintains a large household. Travelers are welcomed and entertained there with good cheer. His hospitality persists into old age, and his reputation spreads far beyond the region.

Mithridanes, a rich young man from a nearby country, hears of Nathan’s fame and virtues. Rather than accept that renown, he tries to eclipse it: he builds a similar palace and offers extravagant courtesies to those who pass through his lands. His imitation succeeds in making him famous, but it does not settle the rivalry. His generosity is measured against Nathan’s, and Nathan remains the standard he cannot overtake.

The contrast becomes personal when an old woman repeatedly enters Mithridanes’ palace to ask for alms. She receives gifts twelve times; on her thirteenth visit, Mithridanes recognizes and chides her, though he still gives. She tells him that she had entered through each of Nathan’s thirty-two gates and received alms without his ever appearing to recognize her. The incident makes Nathan’s generosity seem not merely greater in scale but more effortless and unwearied. For Mithridanes, the comparison is intolerable: he concludes that he cannot surpass Nathan while Nathan lives, and resolves to kill him.

Hospitality Conceals the Danger

Mithridanes rides to Nathan with a small company, keeping his purpose secret. After three days of travel, he arrives near Nathan’s palace at evening. Nathan is walking alone, without the display of dress or attendants that might identify him. Mithridanes asks where Nathan lives, not knowing that he is speaking to the man he intends to find. Nathan cheerfully offers to lead him there and agrees to keep his identity from his visitor.

At the palace, Nathan quietly instructs a servant to ensure that no one reveals who he is. He lodges Mithridanes in a fine chamber, keeps him apart from those who might expose the deception, and personally accompanies and entertains him. Asked who he is, Nathan presents himself as a longtime servant whom Nathan has never advanced. The disguise gives Mithridanes confidence to disclose his identity and purpose to the very person he seeks to kill. Nathan listens as Mithridanes explains his envy and murderous design, then promises secrecy and offers counsel rather than resistance.

Nathan directs Mithridanes to a nearby coppice where, he says, Nathan walks alone nearly every morning. He explains how Mithridanes can find him there and, after the killing, take a safer route home. The counsel is not a trick that diverts the attack: Nathan intends to go to the coppice himself. By helping his guest carry out the stated purpose, he puts his own life within Mithridanes’ reach and makes hospitality an act of radical self-exposure.

Recognition at the Coppice

The next morning, Nathan goes alone to the coppice, as he had told Mithridanes he would. Mithridanes rides there armed with a bow and sword. Seeing Nathan walking by himself, he runs toward him, seizes the fillet around his head, and declares him dead. Nathan answers that he has deserved it. The brief exchange does not stop the threat by force; instead, Mithridanes recognizes the voice and face of the man who had welcomed and advised him.

Recognition changes the scene at once. Mithridanes’ fury subsides into shame. He throws away the sword he has already drawn, dismounts, and falls at Nathan’s feet, weeping. He understands that Nathan has come secretly to give him his life, despite having no reason to expect mercy from him. He asks Nathan to impose whatever penalty his offense deserves. The relationship has reversed: the would-be killer now submits to the man he had treated as an obstacle, while Nathan’s willingness to face death has exposed the smallness of the rivalry that brought them there.

Forgiveness and the Exchange of Roles

Nathan raises Mithridanes, embraces and kisses him, and refuses to make forgiveness something that must be formally demanded or granted. He interprets Mithridanes’ design as an attempt to become famous by surpassing him, not as an act born of personal hatred. Nathan even places the young man’s ambition in a larger, unsettling frame: powerful rulers have enlarged their realms and fame by killing multitudes and destroying cities. In comparison, Nathan suggests, the attempt to kill one man would be neither unprecedented nor extraordinary. His response neither denies the violence of Mithridanes’ intention nor allows that intention to define their relationship.

Mithridanes marvels that Nathan could have walked knowingly toward death and supplied instructions for finding him. Nathan explains his conduct through the principle that he has followed throughout his life: he tries to satisfy those who come to his house as far as he can. Since Mithridanes came seeking his life, Nathan decided to give it to him rather than let him leave as the one petitioner whose request had been refused. He adds that no one has yet wanted his life, and that a life kept longer only loses value. In this reasoning, the ultimate gift is not a metaphor: Nathan is prepared to surrender his own existence as the final and most costly instance of hospitality.

Mithridanes refuses to take that gift and says he would rather add years of his own to Nathan’s life. Nathan proposes a literal exchange: Mithridanes could remain in Nathan’s house and bear Nathan’s name, while Nathan went to Mithridanes’ house and was called Mithridanes. The offer would let the younger man inherit the identity and standing he had tried to rival, while Nathan accepted the corresponding loss of his own place. Mithridanes declines because he fears his actions would diminish Nathan’s fame; he will not take what he cannot himself know how to use well.

From Rivalry to Friendship

The two return to Nathan’s palace, where Nathan honors Mithridanes for several days and encourages his noble purpose with wisdom and good counsel. Their final arrangement is not a victory in the contest that began their relationship. Nathan does not claim that Mithridanes has become his equal; Mithridanes himself recognizes that he cannot outdo Nathan in liberality. Yet the rivalry has been redirected. Instead of seeking renown by removing Nathan, Mithridanes leaves having experienced the generosity he had hoped to surpass and having been treated as a beloved son rather than an enemy.

Told by Filostrato on Day the Tenth, the episode makes their relationship the means through which a story about generosity tests its own extreme. Mithridanes begins by copying Nathan’s outward practice and competing for public fame. Nathan’s response reveals a more radical form of liberality: he offers hospitality to the man who plans his death, gives him the means to carry out that plan, and then offers life itself without resentment. The friendship that follows depends on recognition—not only Mithridanes’ recognition of Nathan at the coppice, but his recognition that generosity cannot be secured by imitation or rivalry.